In May, the U.S. Navy coupled six
solid-state lasers with an output of 32 kilowatts (the Navy's
Laser Weapon System, LaWS) to Raytheon's Phalanx
Close-In Weapon System sensors. The result was
successful kills of four unmanned aerial vehicles.

The results
were impressive and easily surpassed Raytheon's 2006 destruction of a
static mortar shell, and 2008 destruction of an incoming (in motion)
mortar shell over land. Still, Mike Booen, vice president of
Raytheon's Advanced Security and Directed Energy Systems product line
insists that the successful tests are only the start and that the
full system will not be finalized until 2016, at the
earliest.

Interestingly, the Phalanx system is nothing new.
It has typically been coupled, though with traditional munition based
weapons, such as the 20-mm Gatling
gun. The laser-equipped system would likely more than
double the range of the traditional Gatling gun.

The laser
anti-aircraft batteries could be useful to counter hostile nations
like Iran that have reportedly developed
UAV capabilities. Coupled with the Maritime Laser
Demonstration (MLD) cannons, they could offer an unprecedented
warship. States Northrop spokesman Bob Bishop, "The MLD
system we are under contract to build for [the U.S. Office of Naval
Research] will be scalable to a variety of power levels. That
means that laser power can be added—or subtracted—to meet the
level of response necessary to address the threat, all within the
same modular laser weapon system."

The MLD program will
complete its tests by the end of year. The tests will be
performed at 15 KW -- a mere fraction of the laser's full power.
If all goes well, Northrop Grumman may be able to test shots at
higher power levels, afterwards.

Both the U.S.
Army and the Air
Force are also currently evaluating and testing laser
weapons.

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

I know you're not serious, because that made no sense at all. But I'll play along...

The revolution happened for several reasons, none of which had anything to do with furthering Iranian democracy. In fact, the end result was a return to theocracy, where religion rules the state. The Iranian people were AGAINST the idea of Westernizing, which meant treating women as equals (many women supported equal rights, many men didn't), giving religious minorities the ability to hold office, and reducing the power of religious groups.

The Ayatollah managed to rally conservatives to his cause and they ousted the progressive, but arrogant and sometimes incompetent, Shah Pahlavi. Immediately afterward the economy collapsed, there was social unrest, and all the democratic groups (such as the National Democratic Front) were destroyed. Iran pretends to be a democracy, but you'll notice that it dictates more than it listens. Ahmadinejad calls himself a president, but Iran is really run by the Supreme Leader.

Iran is still intolerant: women still do not have equal rights, religious minorities are still treated as inferior, and the religious majority has a say in everything.

additionally, iran has been a LONG-TIME supporter of terrorist organizations (hamas, hezbollah, etc). that alone should cause any democracy-lover to question the validity of the iranian state under its current government.

apparently there are a lot of people on daily-tech who forget that until the revolution, iran was a key ally of the USA in the middle-east. there's a reason they got F-14's from us.

quote: Iran is still intolerant: women still do not have equal rights, religious minorities are still treated as inferior, and the religious majority has a say in everything.

Funny, this sentence equally describes Isriel; are you arguing they are an intolerant nation as well?

quote: The revolution happened for several reasons, none of which had anything to do with furthering Iranian democracy.

Wrong again; The Primary reason for the revolution was to rid the country of the US backed Shah, who was little more then a brutal dictator that had US backing because he was anti-communist. The religious undertones didn't appear until after the revolution ended, when conservatives in Iran created the Supreme Leader position. [Its important to note decisions by the SL can technically be voted, as the origional attempt was to create a form of democracy where religion would have an equal place with law, ironically simmilar to Isriel. As you can see, however, conservatives ended up with more power, and the country veered far to the right.]

quote: Funny, this sentence equally describes Isriel; are you arguing they are an intolerant nation as well?

I disagree. Since when did Israel invoke a news black-out for the entire country? at a time when political dissidents were being lured to demonstrations, then attacked by state police and in some cases murdered.

No, I think the question is, are you arguing that Israel is an intolerant nation? Btw, are you deliberately mis-spelling "Israel"?